Collections in Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Marion and Clarissa Cumbo were a Black married couple based in New York City who worked as musicians and arts fundraisers. The collection, dated from the 1890s to the 1980s, contains photographs depicting the Cumbos' music careers, their work with Symphony of the New World and Triad Productions, and their families and friends. less

Bill Gunn (1934-1989) was a Black writer, actor, and director. The Bill Gunn photographs collection primarily contains pictures of his family, from the 1880s through 1989, as well as some photos related to his career. Bill Gunn's mother, Louise Gunn, compiled most of the photographs in the collection, which depict her career, friends, family, and community engagement. less

The Jean Blackwell Hutson photographs, dated 1890s to 1990s, were compiled by Jean Blackwell Hutson (1914-1998), a librarian who served as curator of the Schomburg Collection from 1948 to 1972, then chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 1972 to 1980. The photographs document her family life, travels, and professional career. The collection holds mostly photographs and to a lesser extent some negatives, telegrams and notes. less

Lawrence Dunbar Reddick (March 3, 1910 – August 2, 1995) was a professor, historian, biographer of Martin Luther King, Jr., and former curator of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Collection. Reddick was a scholar in the field of African American Studies and collected materials related to the Black experience in the military, education, and professional environments. Reddick's collection contains photographs and negatives used in his research, as well as images illustrating his academic career, civil rights advocacy, and personal life. less

The collection depicts the enslavement of persons of African descent, primarily in the United States, from the early 1800s to the mid-1860s. The collection consists mainly of photographic reproductions of illustrations, paintings, photographs, documents, artifacts and printed texts, drawn from original sources in the Schomburg Center, and from the Milton Meltzer research collection. Also includes plates from various publications. Included are images depicting the slave trade, including the Middle Passage and slave auctions; slave labor; portraits of abolitionists and political figures; and activities pertaining to the anti-slavery movement. less

The Schomburg Tintype collection dates from the 1850s through the 1870s, and consists of sixteen tintypes. The portraits depict primarily Black families, couples, and individuals, posed in a portrait style, photographs taken by Black photographers, and most likely enslaved Black women with the white children in their care. less